Quantum Generations

by Kragh, Helge

• ISBN13: 9780691095523
• ISBN10: 0691095523
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-03-04
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

At the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists believed that the basic principles underlying their subject were already known, and that physics in the future would only consist of filling in the details. They could hardly have been more wrong. The past century has seen the rise of quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology, particle physics, and solid-state physics, among other fields. These subjects have fundamentally changed our understanding of space, time, and matter. They have also transformed daily life, inspiring a technological revolution that has included the development of radio, television, lasers, nuclear power, and computers. InQuantum Generations, Helge Kragh, one of the world's leading historians of physics, presents a sweeping account of these extraordinary achievements of the past one hundred years. The first comprehensive one-volume history of twentieth-century physics, the book takes us from the discovery of X rays in the mid-1890s to superstring theory in the 1990s. Unlike most previous histories of physics, written either from a scientific perspective or from a social and institutional perspective,Quantum Generationscombines both approaches. Kragh writes about pure science with the expertise of a trained physicist, while keeping the content accessible to nonspecialists and paying careful attention to practical uses of science, ranging from compact disks to bombs. As a historian, Kragh skillfully outlines the social and economic contexts that have shaped the field in the twentieth century. He writes, for example, about the impact of the two world wars, the fate of physics under Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, the role of military research, the emerging leadership of the United States, and the backlash against science that began in the 1960s. He also shows how the revolutionary discoveries of scientists ranging from Einstein, Planck, and Bohr to Stephen Hawking have been built on the great traditions of earlier centuries. Combining a mastery of detail with a sure sense of the broad contours of historical change, Kragh has written a fitting tribute to the scientists who have played such a decisive role in the making of the modern world.

Author Biography

Helge Kragh is Professor of History of Science at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
PART ONE: FROM CONSOLIDATION TO REVOLUTION	1	(136)
Fin-de-Siecle Physics: A World Picture in Flux	3	(10)
The World of Physics	13	(14)
Personnel and Resources	13	(6)
Physics Journals	19	(3)
A Japanese Look at European Physics	22	(5)
Discharges in Gases and What Followed	27	(17)
A New Kind of Rays	28	(2)
From Becquerel Rays to Radioactivity	30	(4)
Spurious Rays, More or Less	34	(4)
The Electron before Thomson	38	(2)
The First Elementary Particle	40	(4)
Atomic Architecture	44	(14)
The Thomson Atom	44	(4)
Other Early Atomic Models	48	(3)
Rutherford's Nuclear Atom	51	(2)
A Quantum Theory of Atomic Structure	53	(5)
The Slow Rise of Quantum Theory	58	(16)
The Law of Blackbody Radiation	58	(5)
Early Discussions of the Quantum Hypothesis	63	(3)
Einstein and the Photon	66	(2)
Specific Heats and the Status of Quantum Theory by 1913	68	(6)
Physics at Low Temperatures	74	(13)
The Race Toward Zero	74	(2)
Kammerlingh Onnes and the Leiden Laboratory	76	(4)
Superconductivity	80	(7)
Einstein's Relativity, and Others'	87	(18)
The Lorentz Transformations	87	(3)
Einsteinian Relativity	90	(3)
From Special to General Relativity	93	(5)
Reception	98	(7)
A Revolution that Failed	105	(15)
The Concept of Electromagnetic Mass	105	(3)
Electron Theory as a Worldview	108	(3)
Mass Variation Experiments	111	(3)
Decline of a Worldview	114	(2)
Unified Field Theories	116	(4)
Physics in Industry and War	120	(17)
Industrial Physics	120	(3)
Electrons at Work I: Long-Distance Telephony	123	(3)
Electrons at Work, II: Vacuum Tubes	126	(4)
Physics in the Chemists' War	130	(7)
PART TWO: FROM REVOLUTION TO CONSOLIDATION	137	(140)
Science and Politics in the Weimar Republic	139	(16)
Science Policy and Financial Support	139	(4)
International Relations	143	(5)
The Physics Community	148	(3)
Zeitgeist and the Physical Worldview	151	(4)
Quantum Jumps	155	(19)
Quantum Anomalies	155	(6)
Heisenberg's Quantum Mechanics	161	(2)
Schrodinger's Equation	163	(5)
Dissemination and Receptions	168	(6)
The Rise of Nuclear Physics	174	(16)
The Electron-Proton Model	174	(3)
Quantum Mechanics and the Nucleus	177	(5)
Astrophysical Applications	182	(2)
1932, Annus Mirabilis	184	(6)
From Two to Many Particles	190	(16)
Antiparticles	190	(3)
Surprises from the Cosmic Radiation	193	(3)
Crisis in Quantum Theory	196	(5)
Yukawa's Heavy Quantum	201	(5)
Philosophical Implications of Quantum Mechanics	206	(12)
Uncertainty and Complementarity	206	(6)
Against the Copenhagen Interpretation	212	(3)
Is Quantum Mechanics Complete?	215	(3)
Eddington's Dream and Other Heterodoxies	218	(12)
Eddington's Fundamentalism	218	(3)
Cosmonumerology and Other Speculations	221	(2)
Milne and Cosmophysics	223	(3)
The Modern Aristotelians	226	(4)
Physics and the New Dictatorships	230	(15)
In the Shadow of the Swastika	230	(6)
Aryan Physics	236	(2)
Physics in Mussolini's Italy	238	(2)
Physics, Dialectical Materialism, and Stalinism	240	(5)
Brain Drain and Brain Gain	245	(12)
American Physics in the 1930s	245	(4)
Intellectual Migrations	249	(8)
From Uranium Puzzle to Hiroshima	257	(20)
The Road to Fission	257	(4)
More than Moonshine	261	(4)
Toward the Bomb	265	(4)
The Death of Two Cities	269	(8)
PART THREE: PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS	277	(148)
Nuclear Themes	279	(16)
Physics of Atomic Nuclei	279	(4)
Modern Alchemy	283	(2)
Hopes and Perils of Nuclear Energy	285	(5)
Controlled Fusion Energy	290	(5)
Militarization and Megatrends	295	(17)
Physics-A Branch of the Military?	295	(7)
Big Machines	302	(6)
A European Big Science Adventure	308	(4)
Particle Discoveries	312	(20)
Mainly Mesons	312	(5)
Weak Interactions	317	(4)
Quarks	321	(4)
The Growth of Particle Physics	325	(7)
Fundamental Theories	332	(17)
QED	332	(4)
The Ups and Downs of Field Theory	336	(3)
Gauge Fields and Electroweak Unification	339	(5)
Quantum Chromodynamics	344	(5)
Cosmology and the Renaissance of Relativity	349	(17)
Toward the Big Bang Universe	349	(5)
The Steady State Challenge	354	(3)
Cosmology after 1960	357	(4)
The Renaissance of General Relativity	361	(5)
Elements of Solid State Physics	366	(16)
The Solid State Before 1940	366	(4)
Semiconductors and the Rise of the Solid State Community	370	(5)
Breakthroughs in Superconductivity	375	(7)
Engineering Physics and Quantum Electronics	382	(12)
It Started with the Transistor	382	(4)
Microwaves, the Laser, and Quantum Optics	386	(5)
Optical Fibers	391	(3)
Science under Attack-Physics in Crisis?	394	(15)
Signs of Crisis	394	(7)
A Revolt against Science	401	(4)
The End of Physics?	405	(4)
Unifications and Speculations	409	(16)
The Problem of Unity	409	(2)
Grand Unified Theories	411	(4)
Superstring Theory	415	(4)
Quantum Cosmology	419	(6)
PART FOUR: A LOOK BACK	425	(28)
Nobel Physics	427	(13)
A Century of Physics in Retrospect	440	(13)
Growth and Progress	440	(4)
Physics and the Other Sciences	444	(3)
Conservative Revolutions	447	(6)
Appendix Further Reading	453	(8)
Bibliography	461	(20)
Index	481